MY SCRIBBLES

So, Where was I?

2011-11-21T10:03:00.000-08:00

A long break, I must say. My dash board says “last published on Jun 23, 2011”. Nearly 5 months since my last post. Does it mean, I didn’t had thoughts or feelings to express? Or was just too lazy enough to open a “Document.docx” and start typing or was in the process of findings higgs boson particle that kept me speeding away in the circular tunnel and go dizzy all this while. Well, I guess I didn’t had the “thing” during this gap to write a piece of something. Hmmm, so why not gibber about this “gap” to get back on track.

So what I did/gained/learned in this “gap”

1. Gained few pounds , by not going to the gym regularly and finally not even passing by that place.

2. Books:

Started reading many books and have finished only one as of now. And they are

Tao of Physics – An awesome book on the comparison between Modern scientific approach to physics and the ancient philosophies of India, China & Japan. At times this book made me feel, to just drop all the bonds and obligations in my life and follow the Tao (which is unknown). Reading the book, it gave some sort of peace or illusion worth seeking for. After all Sanyaasa is not that easy, someday I shall try out the Saffron.

AdKatha – This book was released in AD ASIA 2011 conference. A nice collection of the history in Indian Advertising ranging from the British era to 21^st century. Who doesn’t love a big colourful hard bound glossy book.

The Secrets of Naga – the second part in Shiva’s Trilogy by Amish. Was amused and disappointed, with the abrupt revelation of Naga Lord who turned out be Lord Ganesh. Until the trunk wasn’t described, the description of Naga in first part was not even closely related to Ganesh. But the author has brought out the concept of duality (good & bad) very well.

And there are many other smalls small books with only few pages conquered.

3. Finally made a trip on my bike with buddies to Pichavaram, the world’s largest mangrove forest. Used satellite images to plan when to leave accordingly to escape rains and luckily/scientifically it worked as travelled through without stopping in rains (w2g INSATs). Clicked awesome pics, went to the Great Thillai Natarajar Temple (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chidambaram_Temple) and was amazed and inspired by the Architecture of those times. Even though I haven’t move a single stone, yet was proud be to a Civil Engineer from the land where great Temples have been constructed. One has to carefully observe these temples, as they offer lot of insights into the Culture of the past in Tamil Nadu. Made a point to study about the culture of the ancient past through the architecture and planning of the great temples in Tamil Nadu.

4. Got the touch of the present, by user experiencing iOS (through iPad 2) and Android. Getting amazed and amused by the infinite variety of apps in both the OS platforms. Apps likes flipboard, Pulse, Ted has kept me away from blogging I guess. Really happy and fascinating to be in the times where the World is making break throughs in digital technology.

Well that’s it. There were other thoughts, but so poor of them as they died off like the innumerable no. of sperms that don’t live to meet the ovary.

Painting of Life

2011-06-23T10:39:00.000-07:00

It starts as a stroke in a plain white sheet,

Like a very small dot in a big blue world;

As the brush is dipped in a palette of colors,

The red baby feet are soiled;

Creative fingers that behold and guide the brush,

The creator’s finger holds hand and leads the child;

Base colours spread all over begins to dry,

Characters and attitude spreads out and starts to fly;

Half sheet done, the colours choose their neigbours and order the brush,

The offspring blooms out and chooses its society;

Strokes and colours sprayed becomes inerasable,

Choices made and decisions taken are irreversible;

Each sheet is unique with its strokes & colours,

So is life with its experiences…

HE & SHE: Life Partnering - a discussion

2011-02-11T10:45:00.000-08:00

HE: hi,i have couple of questions...
SHE: regarding what?
HE: in general
SHE: ok
HE: I was thinking ‘why people are dissatisfied with their marriages?’
see we have two levels of achievement/ desire / goal when we marry or want to settle in life.
One is physical that is the basic animal instinct - make a family, off spring, satisfaction, lineage etc, comfort, protection - all pertaining to survival instincts
Another one is intellectual to be yourself, express freely without any restrictions, freedom, think and act like what you want..
so purpose of life may
1. survival/material pleasures
2. intellectual advancement
and the thing in this is survival it is easy or atleast
SHE: ok shall I interrupt
HE: no :)
SHE: for survival we need him or her but for intellectual we dont and hence objection overruled :P
HE: mummy :(
but the thing is whatever thoughts arise people tend to express with partners. Just for survival sake one partner and intellectually sharing with other persons, even in that the other partner might feel they are not so close, not so known with partner seeking external intellectual friends.
SHE: yes
HE: but if one tries to explain all these things to his/her partner then also...
SHE: then also no use
HE: yeah!!!
see in that case if a partner tries to explain her (his implied everywhere)
hmm no I will use ‘his’ everywhere, is it ok?
‘his’ means ‘his/her’ agreed?
no chauvinism intended,ok?
SHE: hmm okay!!! now that i know you will be damaging the partner use his :)
HE: that’s what I thought. But you see if people read it,they are more used to his as a reference to both the sexes than her. That’s why...
ok am continuing...
after satisfying one’s physical survival goals which mostly happens successfully in every marriage as people are generally healthy, and easily satisfied in achievement of their physical/material goals.
SHE: wait...
HE: families are formed easily
SHE: interruption
HE: ok
SHE: to test this ‘his/her’ more used to her, I used this for the first time in a presentation. It was about security
HE: oh tell me :) :)
SHE: I used 'his' for an intruder and attacker suddenly everyone asked me to replace it.
So see it's psychological
HE: hmm
SHE: ok continue
HE: yeah families are formed easily, homes made and so a sense of physical/material survival becomes surely acheived after few years of marriage with a home, kids or continued satisfaction of physical needs like comfort, sex, help, steady food, shelter and so on...
After this the person seeks for intellectual development. My view is ID (intellectual development) will prosper and occur through sharing of knowledge ideas, debate conversation and other interactions with people of the same intellect or higher intellect.
So in this case of ID the person has two choices
1. interact with the outside world so often for validating his theories, views, ideas and getting comment and reviews. By doing so he has to maintain a set of people as friends for a long time to constantly review his understanding progress. But maintaining a set of people for a long time is difficult as people and time keeps changing.
So in that case he might turn to his partner. Lets mark this stage (A) - turning to his partner for ID.
Now lets say he gets a set of friends people outside his home with whom he constantly interacts and mutually indulge in ID.
In that case he gets a set of friends, people outside his home with whom he constantly interacts and embark in the journey of ID.
So after few years when the physical survival need gets changed into more of daily comfort routine like food, clothes and household comforts, his level of interaction with the partner might stop at that level. (assuming as people age .. they have less physical relationship)
So both the partners feel like they are just bonded for the sake of some daily ritual and their intellect will start to reason what they have shared intellectually or what are the moments they have had (non-physical ones)l which they can relish or expect forward in their life.
So in that case a sense of disappointment creeps in and they feel that they haven’t known each other so much on a intellect basis.
SHE: hmm you have made a very valid point.
But we cant generalize. May be
HE: hmm wait... will try to explore lot of other scenarios
SHE: I had some other question in my mind
HE: this is only 1 scenario
SHE: ok
HE:so what if the person doesn’t have intellect partners in the outside world
He turns to his partner that is (A) in this case and his partner can be
1. of low intellect
2. of almost same intellect
3. of higher intellect

Now lets take case 1
SHE: ok
HE: if the partner 1 is of low intellect he has to either not discuss about his ID thoughts or try to improve the intellect of his partner.
If he doesn't discuss then all the thoughts die within himself as he also has no outside intellectual friends and thus disappointment for me. But if he tries to improve the intellect so that the partner is discussion worthy then he has to spend time preparing the partner.
SHE: In this we will have 2 cases
HE: and either it might take a long time to change his partner
SHE: the partner is wiling to
HE: or he might fail changing her
SHE: not willing to
HE: yeah
SHE: and another case is the partner doesn’t want to learn and improve
SHE: all three cases are v much possible
HE: hmm ok
let me continue with the assumption of the partner is willing to learn, other cases we will build further
SHE: continue sir
HE: going on,so the he tries to
. make the partner knowledgeable
2. downgrades his intellect
to suit the partner
in case 2. the intellect guy acts as a dumb according to his inner self to suit himself to his partner
SHE: ok
HE: so disappointed again in case 2 as he is not living upto his full extent
Now in case1.make the partner intelligent he spends his time helping out his partner to become more intellect,
and the time taken for a person to develop the intellect it takes a lot of time. so by that time he would have lost his energy or forgot about thoughts or his thoughts might have been outdated or would have felt that he has lot valuable hours in teaching rather developing his ideas so again disappointment.
agreed?
SHE: agreed
HE: now case 3
SHE: ok
HE: the partner is intellectually superior
then the opposite of 1st case happens; he feels that he is inferior and so a complex develops and thus again disappointment
SHE: oh
hey in this disappointment happens for the other partner also
HE: yes. Lets us look these scenarios with this analogy
two engines are there going uphill if both are at the same velocity then only travel will be smooth
now lets take a faster engine (superior person) and slower engine( intellectually inferior person) chained (bonded by marriage)
if slower engine is in the front the faster one has the burden of pushing the slower
SHE: yes
HE: and slower feels it is being pushed
SHE: I got that
HE: other case the faster in front and slower one in back
Then faster has to pull and slower feels dragged
SHE: ok
HE: faster after a time doesn't pull as it might lose energy and disentangle
SHE: you want to visualize life like that!!!! hmmm
HE: a big gap in their life he is mentally somewhere
SHE: what if I don't want to visualize like that
HE: hmm
see the partner is intellectually lagging and also taking the first case of the faster pushing the slower what if faster gets tired all the while by pushing slower and their whole life becomes slower and loses speed. kind of life losing the essence of life
SHE: hmm what if he doesn’t push??
want to put his wife in the backyard and so happy about it
HE: if he doesn’t push he will be slow. see one always wants to perform to their max efficiency be it an engine or a human.
though even people may say the reasons like
love forgiveness
understanding
adjustment
inside somewhere they might feel they are not performing up to their intellectual capacity due to their adjustment with partner
SHE: ok
HE: every machine must operate at its maximum efficiency efficiency after that the machine even tries to improve its efficiency. doesn't it?
SHE: hmm!!
HE: so the hill symbolises the path of ID and the engines are the partners and the link the marriage/wedding/relationship
SHE: ok what if the person is ok that he is superior and doesn't mind if the slower one doesn’t climb
HE: if the slower one doesn't climb then no ID
no ID automatically disappointment
As i told before
HE: so things boil down to case no.2 both people are intellectually similar
i.e both the engines go at the same speed
SHE: ok ok
HE: that is why people always try to find a partner who understands them the most
or at least mostly
SHE: ok
HE: intelligent people try to find such partner
if not in the start everything will be rosy rosy either due to high satisfaction of physical survival but in the later stage intellectual survival becomes a question mark
and thus disappointment creeps in and hence people are disappointed with their marriages after long time
We don't see people saying disappointed in the initial stages too much as in the later stages
SHE: hmm you didn't handle stage 2 properly
HE: stage 2 both going at the same speed a perfect couple
as the engines travels one might get faster or slower that again boils down in to
stage 1 or 3 that is why even love marriages or intellectually agreed upon couples
feel disappointed in the later stage
:)
thus both the engines should always agree upon the same speed
SHE: hmm ok good analysis
HE: thank u
SHE: :)

What a night!!!

2011-01-04T09:05:00.000-08:00

Dined with her in the candle light twinkle,

just hearing her voice and the silverware tinkle...

set out for a walk in the moonlit road,

twas pleasant as there was no crowd...

savoured that single ice cream,

as it brought our lips to seam...

Returned to the apartment,

and we sat on the couch;

she bit my ear gently,

and I got the message silently...

As I was about to advance wihout ashame,

the power came,

and "Hurrah" I turned on to the football game...

What is my color?

2010-12-02T07:04:00.000-08:00

I was a little ball of heat
who came out of a bang…
And as I cooled
the life in me began.

They called it a cell
which first grew on me…
It took a lot of shapes called organisms
who fed on me happily.
They came out at the last…
and one among them is reading this now.

You were intelligent
who studied me in and out.
Civilizations, monuments, emotions,
weren't you wonderful!!!
decorating me beautiful.

Now you have lost your innocence
and soaked into greed…
You started to plunder me
and even your own breed.

I was once called ‘Blue’ planet,
but will be soon turning to red;
with all the wars you are fighting
and the blood you bleed.

log kya kahenge (What will people tell?)

2010-11-28T08:54:00.000-08:00

Recently I happen to see a video in facebook

THE VIDEO

The above video highlights the lack of freedom that young Indian men experience and emphasizing that even men are equally curbed like women. If we happen to understand the video, we would also find the reason for this situation. Yes, it is the ‘Samaaj’ (Society). We have heard the hue and cries of many parents, ‘log kya kahenge’ (What will people tell?), ‘mein kaise logon ko mooh dikhaun’ (How will I show my face?)
Why is it so that these questions form the base of the arguments for the parents when their interests and their children’s interest do not match? What makes the parents take up this attitude while involving in decision making (of matters related to education, career, marriage, etc) with their children? The answer that I can come up with is – people (parents in this case) do not know how much importance has to be given for public perception. The fear/worry of public perception has breached into our lives. As the fear grows, it nourishes our Public life more and more by taking away from our Individual life. Fair enough, we must have a public life as we are social animals. We need the society as it plays a role in our survival and betterment of life in terms of providing us food, facilities, suggestions, help, information, human interaction. But to what extent they must interfere in our lives? At what cost should we lean towards our public life instead of our Individual life?

Tiny drops make an ocean, and not vice versa.
We must understand that we as individuals make up the society. It is true that when elements get together they tend to influence upon each other to form a compound which has different characteristics than that of its constituents. But it doesn’t mean the elements tend to change their nature after becoming a part of the compound. A Hydrogen atom still remains Hydrogen in a compound of water. If this is nature, we must also similarly maintain our core (Individual life) even though we are a part of a society. The following can be taken as a comparison.
In a compound formation, elements exchange electrons, similarly while joining a group we exchange few characteristics.

Electron --> Public Life --> The thing that bonds us with other people, and makes the society
Nucleus --> Individual Life --> Our own wishes, dreams, individuality that this is unique to each one of us.

But we are becoming an exception to the above phenomenon. We have started to exchange/share/change our nucleus with the compound and trying to change ourselves to other elements. Things like Peer pressure, honor killings, showoffs, forcing kids to do things; comparing people are all the outcomes of the exception. This fear is in the form of social status with our elders, and peer pressure among the current generation. If its child’s education, marriage, career path among the elders; it is relationships, possession of things, mannerism, tastes that gets affected among the youth.

What I feel is while running after things to satisfy our public life (satisfying teachers, parents, spouses, bosses, friends, trying to get accepted in peer groups,etc) one forgets his own self. And this is the reason why people after years, look back and say ‘Is this what I wanted??!!!’
What can be done to avoid this question? One must time and again connect with our Individual self, passion, wishes. We must also decide who is important to us. And even after we choose, we should decide what they say whether it is important to us or not.

As said by my friend, ‘once we start ignoring unwarranted advices they will stop coming; only when we honor them or react to them they are inflicted upon us’. So we must know when to stop the influences coming from our public life. If we can’t we will start taking into consideration others perception for trivial things in our life and eventually end up doing nothing, living a boring life.
I can sum it up by quoting lyrics from a Rajnikanth starrer movie Baba. In a song, the lines go like this

‘pattum padamale, thottum thodamale, thaamarai ilai thanner pol nee, otti ottamal iru’

Translation: like a water on lotus leaves stay in touch but do not mix up...

Will this happen???

2010-11-14T02:00:00.000-08:00

So what is the above graph????

On the Y is the no. of Religions/Caste and in the X is the Ratio of No. of intercaste marriages to No. of Same Caste Marriages. What this graph is trying to explain is as the no. of intercaste marriages increases and becomes the greater than the count of same caste marriages there will be a decrease in the no. of religion, tending to a single religion.

To explain in simple terms consider the following example,
Male Female Religion
A B Christianity
C D Islam
E F Hinduism
G H Jainism

Assume intercaste marriage occurs and the male get converted to the religion of the female partner (to avoid Chauvinism) with the child also inheriting the mother's religion. Also, say they produce only 1 child and we get 2 male and 2 female children as shown below.

So A & D --> I (m) Islam
C & F --> J (m) Hinduism
E & H --> H (f) Jainism
G & B --> K (f) Christianity

Taking the intercaste marriages to the next level (i.e. with the children) we have

I & H --> L(f) Jainism
J & K --> M(m) Christianity

going on

L & M --> N Jainism

This convergence can be extended to N no. of population and at one point there will be a convergence towards one religion and hope that is Love...

Don't stop loving me (crap)

2010-10-13T07:41:00.000-07:00

Don't stop loving me, loving me
for it is that I need the most
the absence of which is making me
turn into a ghost

Was moving on a hazy road
choking in my deadload
brought into ICU with this trauma
and there I saw you, oh what drama

Now my IV's running on your kisses
which wont last long say those nurses
Now don't you show any hesitation
which gives me high palpitation

Boost up your estrogen
baby I need you, my oxygen
don't you stop loving me
I am turning back into a ghost.

Rajkot: An ugly rehab

2010-08-08T11:46:00.000-07:00

Life demands at sometime that a common man must move out from his home, work and stay elsewhere. This is what I am just doing fulfilling the demand, serving my time at Rajkot. Yes, prisoner I am stuck in this place unable to relocate elsewhere due to the absence of favorable employee policy at the organization where I work. Thus I was forced to stick around in Rajkot and I naturally started observing the city (it is just a town for me). Rajkot is supposed to be a developing urban city, but the people as such are not catching up at the rate.

The people here are mostly entrepreneurial and around 90% run their own business. They don’t want to be defined by any rules of employment in think. This characteristic is also displayed in their outside behaviour. They do not wear helmets and their road sense is bad aggravated with the lack of traffic signals. PAAN shops are sprawled everywhere around the city, assisting people to color the roads red. Newcomers must be careful while walking in roads, as they might be shot with a discharge of paan. Next to paan shops, come the milk booths/diaries which contribute to the swarming population of flies. One can never feel lonely here, as these flies will keep company wherever we go. This may be a small problem compared to the big cattle population out here. The cows perform the role of medians out in the road, regulating traffic and even proving to be lord Yama’s ride rather than Lord Shiva (few girls got killed due to accident with cow). One can see the roads of Rajkot as a battlefield of landmines (from cows) and blood (paan). Even malls are not left out. They are also painted red here and there.

Gujarat being a dry state, it’s difficult to obtain liquor and also non-veg are not available so easily. So on the whole here I am living in a rehab, finding aaloo in every dish with oil floating and served the same day after day and waiting for my parole. Hope some other company bails me out from here….

THE LIFE RAILWAY CORPORATION

2010-05-15T11:43:00.000-07:00

People say life is a journey. I would prefer to say life is a train journey. Because I nauseate in buses and air travels are so short and I don’t like them. So I say God operates this great railway network and has allocated his children various divisions. So the kids line up and the take their zones.

The girl kid says “papa, I will take the plains and coastal zone, will make people’s life happy and beautiful” and she treats them like her Barbie dolls.
Whereas the mischievous son says “Pop, gimme the mountainous terrain, I will take people through a ride of their life time” and he takes these trains through (wooo, choock, choock ) through corners, rocks and gutters and thus some people have this struggling difficult hard life.

As the population grew God wasn’t able to manage his family run business by only employing his family. So he hires these angles, demons and other non-earthlings (Martians may be) and goes public as the Life Corporation. As year on year this corporation has developed into a mature company (may be) with its input to output ratio steadily increasing but a slower rate than the past years or whatever the appropriate unit of time with which we should measure the life of this organization.
The network has various zones divided like well off, filthy rich, damn poor, just making ends meet and so on. Each zones has numerous stations where people board (are born), switch trains (life takes lot of turns), and get down finally (die). So who decides when to board, whats the route/zone to travel and where to jump off? There is various level of decision making in the network, from the God making strategic decision of altering the network, bringing in new zones, adding more trains like

“hmmm… zones are less, lets divide them more, more my son Miserious take the new zone BPL, you my girl Optiona take this minority zone CEOs”.

And the God’s children maintaining their zones, improving their features and maintaining stations; the angels and demons maintaining their respective stations and operating the trains.

You could imagine two demons chatting

The darky bombshell TsuNaomi says “oh boy, last week was tough, had to jump with my train into sea from the bridge”,
“man, you atleast had fun in the water, last week I was all over with debris and mud”, replied Quaky.

There are also other demons like Hearty the attacky, Cancerious, the big Eights who deal with passengers person to person. So they deal with passenger like below

“Am sorry passenger you have crossed two stations past your destination point, Mr. Hearty the attacky will now throw you off the train now”

The Big Eights says, “Oops, I did a mistake. I made a passenger disembark two stations before his destination”
“don’t worry mate, I will make some other passenger in my list get down two stations after”, said Cancerious.

Each passenger gets many freebies and goodies in a random manner that comes allocated with their ticket which this network calls FATE. So someone might have a Jaguar written in their fate, whereas someone might get a rusty Cadillac tagged with their fate. The ticket also has various statuses like ‘Son’, ‘daughter’, ‘father’, ‘wife’, ‘mistress’, ‘poor husband’, ‘grandpa’, ‘pretty old sick grandpa’ assigned to it and keeps constantly changing.

Customer satisfaction about this network is a widely distributed ranging from “bloody hell good”, “I love my life” to “f**king bad”, “life s**ks”. But this network still maintains a monopoly which no one has ever thought about and people are forced to use this network somehow or the other.

There is a special travel pass of this network called ETERNITY which is only given to the employees of this network and has left many passengers stranded in search of it.

Title

2010-05-11T10:42:00.000-07:00

“Sashi Tharoor was the pioneer in the twitter wars. The first twitter war started in the year 2009/10 with Tharoor and Modi leading the front… “, this may be very well a chapter about Indian Social Networking in the subject Internet History. I think we are almost done with the classical or stone age in the world of Internet. Man is learning to speak in the internet; he is learning to communicate, form societies and groups, trying to show his likes and dislikes. Tweets are for minute by minute update, facebook for hourly, blogs for his daily journal entry. The invention of social networking has sparked a virtual fire around the world.

The Stone Age man rubbed stones together and created fire. Our internet man exchanged few tweets and created controversies. What does this mean to us? We have started using internet more than as a medium of entertainment to medium of everything except physical (hope research is being carried out there too). He is turning more inwards, into his computer/laptop/mobile. The wheel of information has started to roll. Hour by hour, minute by minute, second by second bytes of information circle around through various websites. You get up and find your toothbrush being chewed by your dog, you update your status first not thinking of buying another brush or washing the existing one and using it. We are still exploring what we can do with this internet, as the pre age man would have tried with the wheel and the fire.

We are also forming communities, castes, groups in the net world. A whole lot new social structure is being created through specific websites for specific purposes. Hackers, developers, leechers, seeders, bloggers, downloaders, gamers, blah blah, it goes on. From cooking to sex, from fitness to movies, barter to trading all social human activities are brought into internet. Television might soon become a thing of the past. Youtubes and metcafes will broadcasts TV sops and sports, ads will run through all around the sites giving people relief of the ad breaks but reducing the viewing screen. Parents will poke their children in fb to call them for breakfast/dinner. Relatives will save money on gifts and sweets for ex. “Ranganathan and Family sent a Home theatre to Prem & Aruna through giftyrelatives”… and the reply would be “Prem & Aruna received the gift with thanks and send a box of chocolates through chochychochy.com”.

After the movement of tectonic plates and the setting up of earth’s crust, we are laying the fibre optics like grated cheese on pizza and setting up the movement of internet which is going to redefine the world. And mind you, we are going to get excess lazy with the excess cheese. But mind you, this cheese is going to hold people together. Internet a very much needed fat.

Oops

2010-04-22T10:08:00.000-07:00

I woke up little dizzy,
cuz yesterday night I got boozy…
started to walk around hazy,
and yo!!! Ma mama talked to sissy…

Looked up the mirror in the bathroom,
and saw my face was blown up like zoom…
Started performing lavation,
with a free soap solution…
Cold shower needles prickled all over
as I over came the hangover…

I wanted to know what happened,
as I couldn’t remember the party’s end…
So turned on the net to have a look,
if there are any updates in facebook…
But I gave a big yell and told the f word
as I forgot the f**kin password (oops…)

oye machar

2010-04-05T11:34:00.000-07:00

never had one before,
never will have again…
for she was one who shared my smiles and pain

Sometimes sad,
Other times mad,
Used to be a bubbly…

Talking all nights,
Having few fights
There grew a bond from strength to strength…

Is she a friend,
Or is she my mother,
Who seem to bother for she can be my daughter…

Those small dinners,
And those downloaded movies.
Now I seem to miss her dearly,
Who told to me join early…

never had one before,
never will have again
for she was one who shared my smiles and pain…

(gettin too senti eww...)

The Indian Perception of Education

2010-01-24T11:52:00.000-08:00

A line which has inspired me from my childhood...
"... true purpose of education is to train the mind to think .." - Albert Einstein

I wanted this to be a formal essay. Organized points, structured with coherence and all that... which our teachers expect in lengthy question & answers ... but now I realised that I was also blinded by the rules which were taught to us... this is what we were trained to become. Followers of rules, established procedures, methods.
This what is the Indian perception of education. We are taught rules, procedures, methods about everything. Boundaries are drawn. "You can only do this", "this is how it must be done", "dont do like that", "this is not in the rules"...may be this made to be think a lot for all these days to write a structured post. Like prose, like a comprehension, like an essay.

But in this post I am coming out of it. The post is going to about few arguments, few thoughts which will not be sequential nor structured. So here we go

1. Education is only for getting a job. At home you are still a kid. No matter you are from IIT or IIM you have to get approval from the elders. You might have comprehended the quantum physics or black scholes model but still you need to ask permissions for simple things.

2. Status of women and men : You might read in social science , moral science and others texts , that men and women are equal. At home still there is a difference, partial treatment, girl child is a burden. This is still prevalent among educated parents.

3. Parents want their children to get educated... but themselves???

4. Take any civics or social sciences book - "India is a secular state". But do we really follow it? Why dont we encourage inter-caste marriage? Kids learn this, give exams and get good marks - Parents are happy. Kids learn this, get married - Parents and unhappy. As long it is theory we are happy. Put into practice we complain...

Education is perceived as a ladder to financial freedom. Study more, get good job, earn a lot, live comfortably. But does it free ourselves from the constraints imposed by age old traditions, false belief, caste and gender inequality?

Let us educate ourselves and our children not only to become qualified but civilized too...

A Loooonnnnnggggg Hibernation

2009-12-18T10:16:00.000-08:00

Where was it? What happened? Why such dormancy??? these kinda questions buzz me as I start blogging again now.. this moment!!! I feel the trembling of my fingers, wanting to vent out, type some gibber and my mind getting distracted by the other time eating devils of the internet ( gtalk, facebook, orkut).

Obviously it all began when I last posted. End of summer training, the relief of escaping from a 'D' grade, nevertheless still unhappy with the least qualified grade which I got for my project work. Then the turn of the final year in my student life (unless I do a doctorate) wanting to enjoy every moment, I knowingly suppressed this blogging part of me and tried to stick with the fast pace of the life. Time passed on with making new friends, doing derivatives, slogging for CFA, celebrating a wonderful b'day, gifting friends, boozing and listening to loud music. But still in the back/front or inside of my mind, there was a neuron inside dying in vain wanting to burst out (may be that was the reasons of my rare sporadic headaches).

Started sleeping in every other classes. Got the signal from my body "Dude your are too old to study now. go get a life...". All was hazy, where would I go from here, what will I do? what more should I do? Answers came, got placed unhappily, gave the CFA exam. Emptiness, void, what next? classes weren't that interesting (they weren't quite happening either), it was just boring shooting hoops, no real game. Finally came the signal, a man's impressed life brought a light into mine. Those words, that voice made me amnesiac, insulating me from the past and future. Is this what I wanted? I dunno!!! Is this going to be my future? I dunno!!! Now all that I know is the present. And I wish to live day by day, hour by hour, minute my minute, moment by moment....

hoping for a comeback in blogging....

Rain....

2009-05-28T11:35:00.000-07:00

o thy dark clouds,

covering our worries with shrouds

o thy drizzle,

that makes many romances sizzle...

o thy falling bulbs,

that lighten our spirits...

o thy fragrance,

the wet earth - an unique incense...

o thy barrage of piercing needles,

questioning our sins and thee an absolving apostle...

o thy sound,

that causes hearts to pound...

o thy flash,

in front of which our shiny prides become ash...

o thy epilogue,

that makes the sky a colorful dialogue...

Eternity

2009-05-23T12:19:00.000-07:00

I wake up at my second alarm,

with the sun shining bright and warm...

i join the world which is so rash and fast,

after having a dull breakfast...

passing through the market street,

watchin the butcher chop the meat...

smelling the garbage and the fruits,

i try to quickly pass by the route...

travelling over rivers of tar,

reaching another place not so far...

I feel the pure air in ma lungs,

where there aint no dumps or dungs...

settling in a small corner,

in a chair that aint no recliner,

All the day I stare at the comp

and all i do is starin n

chattin n

playin n

tradin n

sleepin n

movie watchin n

yawnin n

time passin

the day goes on

i start packin

getting back home all alone,

and draggin a 170 pounds

I finish yet another round...

chattin all through the night,

listening to dogs fight oustide...

I sign out past midnight

as i crash to sleep,

something gets over me...

i set my second alarm,

and doze off thinking is it insanity,

as yet another day passed in this eternity....

Summers...

2009-04-30T09:36:00.001-07:00

Here I am still sitting in front of this all in one multipurpose entertainment providing stupid machine know as Computer. While I type these lines, the Earth is on a mission to reach its climax (don’t ask with whom) i.e. its hottest season ‘The Summer’ or astronomically perigee. During olden days i.e. my childhood, the word summer used to create a sense of happiness, like cheating in an examination without getting caught or sharing an ice cream with a beautiful girl. Oh no!!! I am just over reacting. The word ‘summer’ just gives a sense of relief which one gets when relieving, after sitting in a 3 hour session in an air conditioned hall. Summer during old days was fun. Running to the ground immediately after the last annual exam or rushing to the theatres to get tickets to the latest movie, whatever it may be, there was always the excitement like coming out of a prison term. One used to start planning what to do in summer, losing hours of precious study during the exam time.

Once the summer holidays get started, an extra boost of nitrous oxide kicks into the engines of kids. The kids, who found it difficult to get up for school, woke up early in the summer and everyone rushed to the play ground for their share of sport. After the breakfast there was this hour of video games at a friend’s place, the new sensation in the upcoming digital era. The worlds of Mario and Contra were explored pixel by pixel till the thumbs and joysticks were broken. Then came the season of Prince of Persia,
Need for Speed, Roadrash and the Ages of Empire which swept away the time like dust. Moving into higher secondary, not one theatre was left behind during the holidays. Passing time standing in the ticket counter, watching even the dumbest movies, afternoons were spent in the cool abode of theatres. Roaming the streets in the evenings in the deadly bicycles, passing through houses where the girls resided, commenting at every girl passing were arguably the entertaining activities during adulthood holidays.

The one most prominent thing in the summer holidays was visiting relatives. It is this summer time that the railways were in fullest operation, transporting each woman to her maike(mom’s house) and all husbands making happy arrangements for a short period of regaining their bachelorhood. Holidays at relatives was always fun with grandparents pampering, roaming out with uncles and aunts, playing with cousins and breaking something or the other with your parent not able to thrash you. Some were lucky enough to go on a boring tour, visiting beautiful places amidst venturing into numerous temples which were the prime aim of the touring party. The most profitable business during the summer was the numerous “CRASH” coaching classes that tried to make kids master of various arts in an unbelievable time period. Kids were sent to the classes mostly to keep the trouble away from home, or when the ladies wanted to watch tv soaps peacefully. In addition to these activities, numerous so called sports like carom board, playing cards, business-trade, kites keep off boredom. Of all these sports, terrace cricket was arguably the best athletic sport involving breaking windows, jumping over terrace and roof to fetch the ball earning all the well wishes of the neighbours.

Whatever it was, those summers were always meant for taking a break from the year’s activities. But as I am living through this summer, a sense of boredom creeps in. Being grown up, engaged in more serious activities like doing a PG course, undergoing an internship, time passes slowly through the windows (Microsoft). Now getting glued to the internet, all I do is checking my gtalk every 5 minutes, changing the playlist mechanically, downloading and watching loads of movies to the extent of turning into an insomniac. The body aches for action, the mind for the thrilling excitement which as of now is only provided with Counter Strike and FIFA08. Hope to see some action soon….

A few of my Murphy's Laws

2009-04-27T02:03:00.000-07:00

Hope Murphy wont mind... :P

You always get a green signal when you go with your girl friend,

but you wait for aeons when you are alone...

The film is always screened early when you go with your girl,

but you get to watcht loads of ads in other cases...

Friends always bump into you while shopping with your girl,

but you dont meet a single soul while shopping alone...

you stay at a far away place,

your boy friend and parents decide yo visit you on the same day!!!

While I was in the bathroom

2009-04-18T11:16:00.000-07:00

Bathing in the rain of hot needles,

singing aloud and bold.

I am out of the world,

while I was in the bathroom.

Cold was the beer,

fanatics were my peers.

As the cross was being set-up,

I chucked up.

Thus sent off to bathe,

I missed my club scoring a goal.

Back from muddy rain,

my clothes were covered with stain.

Taking a shower,

as the dirt ran of the bathroom floor,

I missed the drenched girl who knocked at my door.

With knees weakened,

and after watching many things happened,

I got tired and stepped into the shower.

Bathing in the rain of hot needles,

singing aloud and bold.

I slipped and fell out of the world,

while I was in the bathroom.

a faint february

2009-02-21T10:22:00.000-08:00

Lots of thoughts,

lots of ideas,

but finally this is all i wrote...

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The Lady of seasons

Where does the spring start?

Isn’t it from your hair!!!

Oh!!! Those looks of yours,

Doesn’t it burn me like summer!!!

Your walk,

As graceful as the falling leaves in autumn.

Oh God!!! that touch of yours,

It makes me shiver like in the winters.

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A day A Life

I wake up with a cry,

As the whole world smiling on me…

I go to sleep with a smile,

As the whole world crying for me…

The Cable

2009-01-24T10:03:00.000-08:00

The car passed the bridge and took a right heading towards the cul-de-sac. It got parked on the side of the kerb and Varun was carried to his apartment. Varun had been checking mails in his office desk, when suddenly his right side became ice cold like a stone. After a few minutes of panic and struggle, he was made to sit into the office car and was driven to his home. Varun’s wife Maya, feared that Varun would have got one of the stone attacks with which the medical fraternity had been fighting in the recent years. People seem to suffer from this kind of sudden attacks where their parts of body turn numb. Every hospital had built a separate ward for housing patients suffering from stone attacks. Patients were monitored and were assisted to carry out their daily activities with their numb parts. Maya called for an ambulance and Varun was carried out in the stretch and the ambulance started off.

The Warden was making his daily rounds in level 4 of the Ministerial power center. The center housed millions of brain like things know as biocell. His duty was to check the power level of each biocell for the day. As he was checking over the biocell C873X23 he noticed that there was something strange. The power level was low than the expected limit. As he neared the biocell he observed that there was a cable hanging loose from the left side of the biocell. The warden took the cable and plugged into the free socket.

The ambulance had almost reached the hospital and Varun was carried out in the stretcher. As he was carried over, Varun felt like his right side coming over. As he tried to rollover he fell of the stretcher and got up with ease. The doctors were perplexed and Varun was driven home.

Balance sheet 2008 - audited ofc

2009-01-12T11:56:00.000-08:00

Raju raju yes papa,
Making profits yes papa…
Telling lies, no papa,
Show your balance sheet,
Haha haha
(thought of sharing this rhyme written by my friend)

Hope people don’t find fault with this Raju’s (Rajesh I mean) balance sheet for the calendar year 2008. Guess I won’t be having any confession to make after posting this balance sheet. Here it goes

Q1. CAT results kick started the year, showing that 92 percentile is my vertical limit and other exam results following suit. Applied to IFMR due to my friend’s advice (which turned out be a monumental decision) and awaited for GDPI calls from other b-schools. Finally TAPMI, IMT Nagpur, BIM and IFMR had the heart to interview me. Work side, was just performing marginal work and trying to develop my sporting skills in table tennis and basketball. Jeeves and Wooster (TV series – adapted from the plays of P.G.Wodehouse) was a real stress buster during this testing time. Oh boy! Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry were too apt in their respective roles.

Q2. Applied for leave from the office stating that I had food poisoning (food poison to me??? Not in my lifetime) and travelled to Bangalore and Manipal for the GDPI interviews. It was a mixed experience in GDPIs, getting to know how years of work of many CAT aspirants gets converted to success or failure (though I just took the mock test for preparation). Finally got selected in TAPMI and IMT Nagpur with IFMR in the waiting list. Didn’t accept both the b-schools for specific reasons and finally ended up taking PGDM-DSF at IFMR though they didn’t offer me that course. Counted the days literally for the d-day on which I would drop the bomb to my manager. After saying the news about my resignation, felt like as if I have stabbed the man and was happy for quite a few days. Then as my last at work came nearby, felt low as I had to leave my colleagues turned friends, who were a part of my life for 1 ½ years and the project of which unknowingly I have become a nagging necessary part. At last, left my first job on 2nd June peacefully. Spent the whole month of June watching both good and bad English movies (Finding Neverland, Top Gun, SAW, My first 50 dates, The Truman Show, You don’t mess with Zohan)

Q3. My second innings in college life started on 7th July. Got a truly pan India classmates with people from all the corner of India. Finally was attracted towards the Tamil speaking crowd as my English was too bad to converse with the Northies (though I did know toota foota Hindi). Shared my birthday celebration with a innocent soul and guessed that the creator should have correct the mistake made on my birthday the next year. Got a best friend (unlucky girl for she got a friend like me) who inspired me a lot and helped sailed smoothly in the ocean of MBA. Learnt jargons here and there (courtesy My MIS professor). Started watching lots of movies and forgot that I have created this blog. Gave my first end term exams with least struggles.

Q4. Bad end to a year that started well. The sub prime crisis took its tool around the world, with my seniors finding hard to get jobs. More serious than the subprime, one of my classmates met with an accident and passed away which I am still not able to accept. Such a short ending to beautiful life. Preparations for Abhyudaya and second term helped me and my classmates forget about the incidence. This term too watched lots of movies. Year ended with a presentation week for the second term subjects and boozing out in hostel. The year was quite fast moving, with major decisions of my life being taken. Hope everything goes alright….

Laws of Life

2008-08-25T11:56:00.000-07:00

Don’t know whether my brain was so fried up or I was under trance that I came to find out few analogies for the Newton’s laws. I thought this would be worth sharing as someone would read and criticize me to the core or have a good medicine for their insomnia. Here it goes:

Newton’s First law (not the exact textbook definition which Indian children are being made to memorize): A body maintains its state of rest or uniform motion unless acted upon by an external force. This law can be attributed to life, the universe and the butterfly effect. In life people maintain their normal, cyclic life as long as they are not affected. Everyday men and women go to work, do the household chores regularly so as to sustain their lives. This routine gets affected when events like deaths, loss of job takes place. Thus the state of inertia is disturbed. Similarly the universe at start must have been in rest, which would have been set into motion by an external force. Consider the butterfly effect where in a small change at one place in a complex system can have large effects elsewhere. The complex system may contain smaller subsystem in inertia and one small external force upon a subsystem creates a change in the state of the subsystems in a cascading effect provided the subsystems are interlinked. Hence it can be possible that a butterfly flapping its wings in Rio de Janeiro might change the weather in Chicago or what I have written here may cause a fatal experience to someone somewhere.

Newton’s Second Law: Force = Mass X Acceleration
Thus mass and acceleration are inversely proportional to each other. Consider mass as the responsibility or burden of an individual. Thus the rate at which he grows or reacts or takes decision concerning the responsibility decreases when more responsibility is given to the person. Given the equal opportunity of force or motivation a person with less problems or complexities (i.e. mass) will grow or accelerate fast than the person with more problems. Let us analyze force as the damage or the impact. So if a person with more mass (as discussed above) accelerates fast the impact in the case of a failure would be far greater than the person with less mass. Thus the recovery would not be as easier for a more worrisome person as compared to a carefree person.

Law of Friction:
A body keeps moving if the medium frictionless or it will eventually stop if the medium has some positive friction. So when life is set out on a roll the ideal outcome must be that life keeps on going. But as we have many frictions (problems) in our medium of life, it takes away the energy of the life gradually. Thus when all the energy of life is consumed by the friction of the medium (karma) life stops and that’s why there is death (now you must be wishing that I could have been dead).

Law of Entropy:
Entropy increases as matter and energy in the universe degrade to an ultimate state of inert uniformity. Thus the flow is from high to low so as to attain equality. This is why life flows. At the start of life there is high matter and energy. And in Universe there may be different life at different levels of energy. To attain inert uniformity every life spends its matter and energy attains inertness in the form of death. So every organism is approaching the inert uniformity of death so as to create a balance. Hence till balance is achieved i.e. till there is inequality, life will be in motion.

Disclaimer: The author is neither a Physicist nor a Philosopher and neither a Schizophrenic.

The Six Letter Word

2008-08-02T23:27:00.001-07:00

When I was at nursery,
a girl cried when I was punished,
even though when it wasn’t necessary.
I asked my mom ‘why did she cry?’
My mom smiled and said
‘She is your friend.’

This was at junior,
when shared candies were tastier.
A boy next-door left the town,
and my face was in tears and frown.
My dad asked why I’m sad,
I said, ‘he is my friend’.

It was at high school,
When we all were playing by the pool.
I pushed a fatso and there was a splash,
I was dragged to the principal’s room in a flash.
The principal flogged me and asked ‘Why?’
I said ‘he hit my friend’.

And came the college with girls looking pretty,
And faculty a bit nutty.
We punctured a professor’s bike tyre,
And didn’t spare the break wire.
When questioned,
We said ‘he failed our friend’.

Now sometimes I relax after work,
Glancing at the pictures in the album,
And at those moments I become mum.
My daughter asks me ‘Who are they daddy?’
I say with a tear and a smile,
‘They are my friends’.